Cascade Vista Child Care Center was located at a church in the Fairwood neighborhood for the past 57 years, surviving multiple ownerships. With new ownership this year, however, Cascade Vista had to either move spaces or close.
Launch, a nonprofit organization, has been providing child care for the Seattle area for 47 years. Currently, it serves more than 800 children from infants to age 12. Launch was looking to open a location in Renton, and took the opportunity with Cascade Vista, assuming ownership and responsibility of the daycare.
Launch has found a temporary location for Cascade Vista, just down the street from Cascade Elementary and across the street from a new community center, at Word of Life church. All Cascade staff and teachers will transfer to this new location. It will continue serving 65 children annually, ages 3 to 12. The new location opened July 10.
Wendi Osborne, the site manager at Cascade Vista, has managed the program for 25 years.
“I’m grateful that we were able to partner with Launch and Pastor Ronnie at Word of Life Church to keep this program open,” she said in a recent news release. “Cascade Vista Child Care Center has been serving the Renton area for decades, and losing this center would be a devastating blow to the community. I’m so happy that the 65 children and families we serve annually will continue to benefit from our program, and the teachers get to keep their jobs.”
Laura Nicholson is Launch’s chief program and strategy officer. In an interview with the Renton Reporter, she said Launch taking on ownership of Cascade Vista means it can take care of the responsibilities.
“Managing a child care facility is incredibly complicated. It takes a lot of time and energy,” she said. “Cascade Vista was going to close if we hadn’t agreed to take it on.”
Launch intended to open a site in Renton for quite some time because of its high need as an area with an inadequate supply of child care for its residents.
“Renton, and especially where this maintained program is in, is actually considered a child care desert,” Nicholson said, adding that in the 98058 ZIP code, less than 20% of child care needs are being met.
The Washington Child Care Collaborative Task Force (WCCC) was formed in 2018 and is a coalition of childcare providers, advocates, legislators, community members and representatives of the business community. In its 2022 report, it stated that even before the pandemic, 63% of children birth-to-five lived in “childcare deserts.”
Child care that does exist is expensive and in the news release, Launch acknowledged the need for accessible and affordable child care programs in the region.
The following is the average cost of annual child care, per licensing standards (cost varies depending on quality of care) according to the 2022 WCCC report. The average cost in King and Pierce County for full-time child care of an infant is $34,074 per year. For a toddler, the average cost is $25,704. For a preschooler, parents could spend $21,864. For a school-ager, the cost is about $10,786. Statewide, for the most common age of children in daycare (toddler and preschooler), the average cost is $23,006/year.
By these costs, child care for an infant and preschooler can equal up to 35% of a two-parent family’s income, and up to 150% of a single parent’s income. The federal standard of affordability is 7% of income.
“We’re also really excited to build community with the rest of Renton and get to know the area, get to know people. We really welcome partnerships and folks getting engaged in this work,” said Rehana Lanewala, Launch’s chief communications officer. “We’re firm believers that, though it’s kind of cliche, it takes a village. And our work really is only possible with the engagement of our community. That’s really central to the work that we do.”
